(Mnemonic glyphs from Giordano Bruno’s Ars Memoriae (The Art of Memory) 1582)

Back through the mists of time, we suddenly find ourselves 500 years B.C. in ancient Greece where philosophy and wisdom first took root. This impressive society is also the first to form the concept of civilization and culture, and first to form a nation. Here the first trappings of science can be found.

South lies Athens where wise thinkers spend their time contemplating the nature of the universe. Their thoughts are kindled by what they can see. There is so little light pollution that the stars and the milky way shine bright in the sky. The delicate embroidery of the stars can be seen in humbling detail. Constellations jump out at the awestruck stargazers.

Across the street a man stands at the entrance to the banqueting hall, clearly enjoying the crisp night time air, speaking with a messenger, taking a break from the festivities inside. You recognize the man as Simonides, famous poet, but you do not recognize the messenger who is a stranger to the city. With terrifying suddenness thunder echoes through the streets. Disaster strikes, and the building behind Simonides collapses. A stunned silence permeates the streets as those few who happened to be close by pause and watch, helpless in those moments of incomprehension. Simonides himself stands aghast at the sight of the collapsed hall. He had been inside it only moments ago.

People rush to the scene, and pull the rubble from the collapsed building. They struggle through the night searching for survivors but to no avail. The diners lie crushed under the rubble, unrecognizable. Simonides is the only person to survive the banquet.

Now all that remains to be done is to offer the unfortunate diners proper funeral rites, but this presents a problem. Each is crushed beyond recognition and yet no family wishes to perform the rites for a stranger. If they cannot recognize their loved ones, then no rites can take place. Why should such expensive rites be for the benefit a stranger?

Simonides finds that by mentally imagining the banquet hall the way it was, and taking a walk around this imagined scene in his head, he is able to remember perfectly the position of each of them. Astounded by his own feat of memory, and wondering if he could employ it in other uses, Simonides tries to understand the techniques behind it. In doing so, the ancient and fascinating art of mnemonics is born. What happened next is best told by Cicero;

“He inferred that persons desiring to train this faculty must select places and form mental images of the things they wish to remember and store those images in the places, so that the order of the places will preserve the order of the things, and the images of the things will denote the things themselves, and we shall employ the places and images respectively as a wax writing-tablet and the letters written on it. (Cicero, De Oratore, II, lxxxvi – translation: Sutton & Rackham, 1942).”

In the ancient world such mnemonics became popular, until everyone could remember torrents of information as easily as our computers do today. Unfortunately such techniques died out gradually until at last, during the middle ages, only the scholarly monks such as the Jesuit missionaries were aware of them.

One such missionary was a man called Matteo Ricci, who in 1578 departed from Lisbon in Portugal on a journey to far off lands. He arrived in Goa which was at that time a Portuguese Colony, in September of 1578, where he remained for 4 years. In 1582 Ricci was dispatched to China.

Using the techniques his teachers at the Jessuit college had taught him he learned the Chinese language and became one of the few western scholars to master the very difficult Chinese classical script. Indeed, he was able to read a Chinese book, and then read it forwards or backwards word for word, such was his power of memory thanks to the art of mnemonics. Added to this his own appreciation and respect for indigenous Chinese culture, and one need not wonder why Chinese leaders and scholars were so impressed by him. The powerful Chinese families, noting Ricci’s remarkable feats of memory, all sent their sons to study with him so that they would not be at a dissadvantage. In the course of these lessons Ricci was able to influence them towards Christianity. It has been said that Matteo Ricci was the most successful Missionary ever, in terms of the sheer number of people he converted. He achieved this thanks in part to the ancient art of mnemonics, and the amazing feats of memory that gave him such high standing in Chinese culture as a great Scholar and teacher.

Meanwhile Giordano Bruno, then staying in Paris, published several works on mnemonics, including De umbris idearum (On The Shadows of Ideas, 1582), Ars Memoriae (The Art of Memory, 1582), and Cantus Circaeus (Circe’s Song, 1582). All of which were based on his models of organised mnemonics for knowledge and experience. Thus it was Bruno who finally pinned down Mnemonics, ensuring its survival into the modern age.

It remained a little known, though effectively utilised art, which filted down through circles of learned scholars until finally being popularized, first by British historian Frances A. Yates’s 1966 book ‘The Art of Memory’, and then again by the psychologist, educational consultant (and proponent of mental literacy) Tony Buzan, in a 1970s tv series for the BBC and then dozens of books.

Mnemonics, no longer a dry academic discipline taught by monks, is now popular among children and students, colleges and universities. Amazingly it is possible to teach anyone how to use mnemonics to remember any amount of information, and so it has become another welcome technique to help people learn all the information thrown at them in the course of their studies, and gain excellent results by the end of them.